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Dying in Zimbabwe now a luxury only afforded by the rich
ZimOnline
December 12, 2005

http://www.zimonline.co.za/headdetail.asp?ID=11266

"We, black Zimbabweans do not believe in cremating our departed ones. Burning the bodies of dead relatives is simply not an option"

Harare - There is simply no respite for Harare's long suffering residents. While the cost of living was already beyond the reach of many in the capital - thanks to six years of unprecedented economic recession - the cost of dying is set to surge beyond the reach of many families, according to the city's financial plan for 2006. The state-appointed commission running the crumbling capital after the popularly elected opposition council was controversially dismissed by the government, last week announced a shock Z$32.56 trillion budget for 2006 in which the price of the cheapest grave is set to rise several times more than the average salary of a factory worker. Rates and tariffs for other municipal services and facilities are similarly expected to rise by between 500 and 2 000 percent. But it is not the fact that charges are rising while council services and facilities are deteriorating by the day that has attracted the most ire from residents. It is the new burial charges that many in Harare's teeming low-income suburbs say are not only unaffordable but also show the city commission's insensitivity to the plight of bereaved families. Or to use the words of Oscar Mubaya, a resident of the capital's Kuwadzana suburb: "These new charges mean that dying is now a luxury only the rich can afford. How do the city fathers think we will cope with these new charges? Surely, it is anti-people to come up with such a budget whose effect extends even to the dead."

Harare, with about two million people, has three main cemeteries at Warren Park, Granville and Greendale as well as several smaller ones scattered across the city. Charges at all the burial grounds will, beginning January 2006, soar more than 20-fold from $750 000 to $8.5 million for the grave of an adult. A further hike is planned mid-year to leave the cost of a grave at $17 million. The average take home pay of a worker in Zimbabwe is about $3 million per month meaning many will find it extremely hard to pay for a relative's or their own grave. It is many times cheaper for one to cremate a deceased loved one. But cremation is an alternative acceptable only to Zimbabwe's minority Asian and white communities and not among the black segment of the population. "We, black Zimbabweans do not believe in cremating our departed ones. Burning the bodies of dead relatives is simply not an option," said Sekai Mapusa of Highfiled suburb, a mother of four who vowed she would never forgive her children if they were to cremate her dead body.

Combined Harare Residents Association chairman Mike Davies said the association was still consulting over not only the proposed new burial charges but the entire budget as well. Davis however was quick to add that the proposed new grave charges would be unaffordable to the average Harare resident and accused the city commission of wanting to cash in on the people's misery. He said: "Very few people can afford that kind of money to buy burial space for their departed ones. Right now the country has no fuel and it is very expensive to ferry the deceased to the rural areas where burial ground is free and many residents were resorting to these urban cemeteries. With the latest hikes, I am not sure how residents are going to cope." Harare Commission chairwoman Sekesai Makwavarara was not available for comment on the matter. But the commission has defended the rates and tariff hikes saying this was in line with galloping inflation which hit 502.4 percent last month. Whatever the justification for hiking burial charges, the move is certain to pay off handsomely for Makwavarara and her commissioners given the high number of deaths in the capital due to a burgeoning HIV/AIDS crisis that alone is killing at least 2 000 Zimbabweans every week.

But total deaths in Harare due to HIV/AIDS-related illness and a host of other causes are even higher with municipal figures showing that an average 5 000 people are buried in the city's cemeteries every week, with several more transported to their rural homes for burial there. But Shyleen Mupukuta from Mabvuku suburb in the east of the capital said if the city budget was approved by the government without changes to the proposed costs of burial ground, then Harare - already overflowing with uncollected garbage - might soon find its hospitals clogged by corpses as relatives struggle to raise enough cash to pay for graves. She said: "It's not just about the cost of the burial ground, you also have to consider the prices of coffins that are also rising daily, the cost of transport from the hospital mortuary to the cemetery and then the cost of food for people gathered for the funeral wake. "To be honest, the way I see it is that dead bodies will pile up in hospital mortuaries for months and months while poor relatives scrounge around for enough money to pay for all what is required to conduct a burial."

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